Damien
Well-Known Member
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Although having said that, Arab stallions have no official grading/testing process, so tend to be judged mainly on their show results.
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I hadn't actually thought of that, so thanks for raising it, the same can be said of the thoroughbreds I guess also but I guess we can safely add that there are also some very bad examples of both from some very misguided breeding.
Nonetheless the success of those breeding stallions is purely based on their performance results be it on the race track or in the show ring.
Why can the same not be said for dressage? Showjumping? eventing? why suddenly do we feel that we need to have some pannel of judges dictate to us what choices we should or should not make?
A colleague stallion owner who had their stallion graded with one of the top EU studbooks, failed with one and was passed with another they firmly believed that there was no way their stallion would be granted license with the second studbook they presented him to because they would never pull rank over the other stallion licensed with the same bloodlines due to the massive influential name of the other stallion owner.
I guess to some extent politics do have to come into play don't they? If you consider that over 800 colts are presented for initial KWPN stallion inspection in November as rising three year old and only 20 or so make it through to the final selection what becomes of those 780 others?
Now some would say that the final selection are the best of those 800 presented but does that really make the other 780 not worthy as breeding sires? Or are other factors taken into consideration? Realistically I guess they have to, they need to decide between say 10 stallions with the same bloodlines, and hopefully we would like to believe that they will try to choose the best, but they may also look at factors such as who owns the horse, which household name is most likely to take that stallion the furthest to promote and highlight the credibility of the studbook, which dam line they feel has produced the best results. I am sure there are many other factors.....
Anyway of those 780 many are sold as entire, some find themselves presented at other stud book inspections within Europe, in the UK, the USA, Canada etc and many have great breeding strengths and should quite rightly be valued as breeding stallions and the majority are probably gelded as without the cudos of the studbook license behind them the stallions would be worthless.
Generally those that are kept entire are owned by breeders who feel that they genuinely are worthy of stallion status and they usually know a good horse when they see one so will do what they can to have him licensed with a studbook somewhere. The breeders choice in Holland is often the AES Zangersheide, BWP and the NRPS who also have very strict breeding standards set but who are often viewed by breeders as being less politically orientated, with a consensus that a stallion can be given the opportunity to prove himself as a sire in competition and some such as the AES by allowing breeders to stand stallions for private use only.
I guess if a stallion is used for breeding and constantly produced very poor and mediocre progeny his reputation will quickly be established just as it is in the racing and Arab world, so really cant see him doing that much damage in the grand scale of things.
Also with some of the studbooks that do have a tier system lower grading stallions can consitantly produce very good foals.
In a recent thread someone stated that its not always the best mares produce the best foals and have to say totally agree, have often heard a breeder say, not the bonniest of mares but she always produces a damned good foal.. have one of those ourselves!
You would not look twice at her, just as the stallion I mentioned earlier.. but as you say I guess we have to start somewhere and have some measurable system in place..........
Although having said that, Arab stallions have no official grading/testing process, so tend to be judged mainly on their show results.
[/ QUOTE ]
I hadn't actually thought of that, so thanks for raising it, the same can be said of the thoroughbreds I guess also but I guess we can safely add that there are also some very bad examples of both from some very misguided breeding.
Nonetheless the success of those breeding stallions is purely based on their performance results be it on the race track or in the show ring.
Why can the same not be said for dressage? Showjumping? eventing? why suddenly do we feel that we need to have some pannel of judges dictate to us what choices we should or should not make?
A colleague stallion owner who had their stallion graded with one of the top EU studbooks, failed with one and was passed with another they firmly believed that there was no way their stallion would be granted license with the second studbook they presented him to because they would never pull rank over the other stallion licensed with the same bloodlines due to the massive influential name of the other stallion owner.
I guess to some extent politics do have to come into play don't they? If you consider that over 800 colts are presented for initial KWPN stallion inspection in November as rising three year old and only 20 or so make it through to the final selection what becomes of those 780 others?
Now some would say that the final selection are the best of those 800 presented but does that really make the other 780 not worthy as breeding sires? Or are other factors taken into consideration? Realistically I guess they have to, they need to decide between say 10 stallions with the same bloodlines, and hopefully we would like to believe that they will try to choose the best, but they may also look at factors such as who owns the horse, which household name is most likely to take that stallion the furthest to promote and highlight the credibility of the studbook, which dam line they feel has produced the best results. I am sure there are many other factors.....
Anyway of those 780 many are sold as entire, some find themselves presented at other stud book inspections within Europe, in the UK, the USA, Canada etc and many have great breeding strengths and should quite rightly be valued as breeding stallions and the majority are probably gelded as without the cudos of the studbook license behind them the stallions would be worthless.
Generally those that are kept entire are owned by breeders who feel that they genuinely are worthy of stallion status and they usually know a good horse when they see one so will do what they can to have him licensed with a studbook somewhere. The breeders choice in Holland is often the AES Zangersheide, BWP and the NRPS who also have very strict breeding standards set but who are often viewed by breeders as being less politically orientated, with a consensus that a stallion can be given the opportunity to prove himself as a sire in competition and some such as the AES by allowing breeders to stand stallions for private use only.
I guess if a stallion is used for breeding and constantly produced very poor and mediocre progeny his reputation will quickly be established just as it is in the racing and Arab world, so really cant see him doing that much damage in the grand scale of things.
Also with some of the studbooks that do have a tier system lower grading stallions can consitantly produce very good foals.
In a recent thread someone stated that its not always the best mares produce the best foals and have to say totally agree, have often heard a breeder say, not the bonniest of mares but she always produces a damned good foal.. have one of those ourselves!
